


So, How Was Your Summer?

by CB_Magique



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Highschoolstuck, Humanstuck, Multi, Sadstuck, Suicide Attempt, mental disability
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 18:18:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/776515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CB_Magique/pseuds/CB_Magique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chances are, not all that great. </p><p>This isn't the Summer of Love or the Summer of Change. This is the summer when your big brother had to start selling himself to pay the bills. This is the summer when you died a little inside. This is the summer when you lost your legs and a whole lot more. This is the summer when you decided life wasn't worth living. This is the summer when you were finally convinced that everything wasn't going to be alright. This is the summer when you felt more alone than ever before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Everyone: show up for the first day

It’s Monday and it’s too early to be awake. The school halls are half empty since apparently most of the student body has decided that the first day of school isn’t worth the early rise. Karkat wants to be one of them but isn’t as lucky as those who are skipping. He has Kankri. Kankri was up at 6 a.m. every morning and this morning he dragged Karkat out of bed and shepherded him through the morning routines. Fortunately, Karkat managed to ditch his older brother when the elder stopped to chat to (lecture) a couple of students who he’d heard making a joke based on racial stereotyping. He made it to his new locker for the school semester and proceeded to dump everything from his backpack into it. His assigned locker isn’t great. It’s a whole block away from where all of his classes are and right next to a water fountain. For the whole semester he was going to have to deal with people sidling up right next to him, invading his personal space, leaning over and puckering up. Was it mentioned that they were going to be right next to him? He hates people. In general. Everyone.

   He slams his locker shut with more force than was really necessary and turns on his heel in a huff. It’s still ages until the bell is scheduled to ring so he thinks that maybe he could make it to his first class early, choose his seat and successfully avoid human interaction for the rest of the morning. He still has the early morning bleariness in his eyes, so when he turns around and finds someone standing in his way he doesn’t recognise them at first.

   “Hey, fuckass, what the fuck is wrong with you? Can’t you just step out of the fucking way?” he snapped.

   “Good morning to you too, Karkat,” the obstruction replies.

   Karkat blinks. His obstruction is a girl a bit taller than him (but everyone is taller than him so that says nothing) with long, curly black hair and a cheerful face. She is dressed primly in a dark green skirt with a short-sleeved green blazer that buttoned up in a bizarre zigzag pattern, a white shirt underneath and a lime green bowtie to boot. Her socks had fallen down messily to meet her black school shoes but she doesn’t seem to care. Karkat looks her over and then looked down at himself. He’d thrown on a pair of dark grey trousers and a black sweater. The simple-and-probably-really-poor boy look was completed with his beat-up sneakers. He glares at the cheerful girl.

   “Oh, I didn’t realise it was you, Aradia,” he says gruffly. “And what the fuck? Did this sanity-forsaken shitpuddle of a school go off and get a fucking stupid uniform while I wasn’t watching?”

   “No, it’s still technically uniform-less,” Aradia replies with a giggle. “My mother just made me wear this today. She thinks it’s important to be serious about school, especially on the first day. This was her old middle school uniform.”

   “From where? From the High School of Lost Boys and Oompa-Loompas? Is that a thing in your country? Please tell me that’s not a thing.”

   “Don’t worry, it’s not a thing. I think it’s ridiculous too.” Aradia steps up to the locker right beside Karkat’s and checks her organiser for the code. “I take it that since you’re around here you have a locker nearby.”

   “How long’d it take you to fucking figure that out? I’m right next door.”

   Aradia points to the locker on her right. Karkat shakes his head. She looks to the left and giggles. “Right next to the water fountain? That’s going to be awkward.”

   “No fucking shit!”

   “Don’t worry. I’m sure that once people realise your locker’s right next to it they’ll stop using it,” Aradia assures him, putting her burden of books and stationery into her locker. “Do you have maths first?”

   Karkat checks the back-to-school enrolment package he’d been issued at the front office and looks at his timetable. He nods.

   “Cool. Shall we go together, then?”

   “I was hoping to avoid talking to people but I guess since you’re already here that plan’s been blown to fucking kingdom come.”

   Aradia just chuckles and the two of them fall into silent companionship as they begin to walk to their maths classroom. Karkat stuffs his hands into his pockets and slouches as he walks. Aradia is much more upright, standing straight-backed like someone who was worthy of the aristocracy rather than the ghettos. Karkat looks down at his feet, feeling as if someone had just thrown him into a hole, put a foot on his head and told him to stay there. Aradia is pretty and graceful, it’s no wonder Sollux likes her so much.

   “Hey, Aradia,” Karkat pipes up as they pass through the doors to the schoolyard. They needed to cross it to get to the correct block for their class. “Can I ask you something?”

   She looks down at him, confused that he’d started a conversation. She’d known Karkat well for a while and this seemed out of character. “Um, sure. Go on.”

   “Do-”

   “The lioness huntress stealthily stalks her prey from the bushes. She flexes her claws, preparing to make the charge…”

   “GOD FUCKING DAMMIT!” Karkat screams, turning to the clump of bushes where the voice had come from.

   “She strikes!”

   A small girl whose little body is swamped in an oversized, ugly, green coat leaps out of the bushes and lands right on top of Karkat. They both fall onto the concrete pathway, making Karkat wince at the hard impact on his back. He’d been the one to break the fall. The girl straddles him and giggles. He glares at her. “Nepeta, get the fuck off me before I flip my shit.”

   “The lioness huntress considers the ultimatum presented to her with thoughtfulness.” She said that, but Nepeta’s face shows that she’s doing anything but considering Karkat’s threat.

   “Get off or I’ll throw you off.”

   She giggles again and rolls off him. Karkat growls. She gets up and adjusts her cute, fluffy cat hat (it’s the super adorable type that has paws with pockets for your hands). Karkat rolls onto his side and tries to rub at that spot near his right shoulder where he is possibly bruising, but it’s too hard to reach.

   “Need a hand?”

   Karkat looks up at the new voice. His lips twitch into the closest he’s come to smiling that morning but he takes it back and reinstates the usual scowl before anyone can comment. Kanaya is looking down at him with a friendly smile and an outstretched hand. She’s looking far too impressive just for school, wearing a nice red dress with black lace trimmings that Karkat knew she had made herself. Her other arm is tucked in close to her body with a book clutched in her hand. Karkat take the hand she offers him and lets her pull him up.

   “Thanks, Kanaya,” he mutters.

   “Don’t mention it. You looked a little wounded,” she says in that calm, gentle way that never fails to settle him. For a moment Karkat feels somewhat okay with life in general until Nepeta bounds up to Kanaya’s side, straight into the centre of Karkat’s vision and then all good feelings are gone. Nepeta isn’t half as elegant as Kanaya is. Aside from the coat, she dressed similarly to Karkat, save for a much nicer pair of sneakers… with cats on them. Kanaya, like Aradia, is someone else who Karkat feels eternally jealous of.

   “I’m so happy that Karkitty came back this year!” Nepeta beams.

   “Of course I was fucking coming back! Where else could I fucking go to school?” Karkat barks.

   “And Aradia too—whoa,” Nepeta says, ignoring Karkat’s vitriol and turning her attention to Aradia and Aradia’s outfit. She snickers. “Wow, Aradia. Uh, way to represent your demographic.”

   Aradia looks unimpressed with the comment but Kanaya is also covering her mouth to try to hide the chuckles. “Oh, goodness. Where did you get such a… er, unique outfit?” Kanaya asks.

   “My mother made me wear it,” Aradia says with a deadpan expression. “It’s just for today.”

   “I hope for your sake it is,” Karkat says. “Now if you two don’t mind, Aradia and I are going to our maths classroom. Goodbye.”

   “But it’s ages until the bell rings. Surely you have some time to stay and chat,” Kanaya insists. “How was your school break?”

   “How do you think it was? I did what I fucking always do whenever I get time off school: I worked more hours at my shit stain of a part-time job so that my shitty, useless family can put some savings away just in case we don’t make the fucking rent one month. How about you? I’m sure you had some great fun.”

   “Not really. Mum still had a lot of work to do and she volunteered to be part of her school’s summer catch-up program,” Kanaya admits. “So we didn’t go anywhere, she just let my sister and I stay home, watch a lot of TV and make new clothes together. It was quite boring, unless you’re interested in a story about a sewing machine mishap.”

   “Not in the slightest,” Karkat says before Aradia can jump in and express her interest.

   “Yeah, my holiday wasn’t much of a holiday,” Nepeta says, her face suddenly turning downcast. “Mama’s in hospital again.”

   All three of them feel like as if a giant rock has dropped into the pits of their stomachs. They all knew that Nepeta’s mother had been fighting with cancer for a while now. This was the third time she’d been diagnosed.

   “I-it’s okay, Nepeta,” Karkat stutters. “She’s beaten it twice. She’ll be alright in the end.”

   Nepeta makes a noise in the back of her throat that sounds like a moan. It seems to just be an acknowledgement of the fact that her friend had spoken, rather than any kind of agreement. Kanaya puts a comforting arm around her shoulders. Nepeta wraps both of her arms around Kanaya.

   “Well, my family did quite well over the break. The spa got a lot more business than it did last year,” Aradia adds, trying to lighten the mood.

   “By ‘spa’, you mean that shithole of a cheap, chain hairdressing and manicure shop your mom works in,” says Karkat. “In other words, your break sucked, just like everybody else’s. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo. I’m fucking out of here before we start drowning in the rancid shitpool of our collective misery.”

   “Wait, didn’t you have something you wanted to ask me?”

   “That was intended to be a private conversation! I just wanted to know about Sollux but I don’t give a shit anymore. Actually, where the fuck is he? He’s usually the kind of nerd who shows up early.”

   Aradia’s face falls. “Oh, Karkat… didn’t you hear?”

   “Hear what?” Karkat looks around his friends. They’re all giving him pitying looks. Nepeta has stopped hugging Kanaya but the taller girl keeps her arm around the little cat girl. He repeats: “Hear what? Would you guys just fucking spit it out!? What’s the goddamn fucking secret about Sollux!?!”

 


	2. Sollux: attempt to commit suicide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a night of no sleep, Sollux questions his right to even be alive anymore.

There’s a cluster of old apartment blocks in the inner city, known as The Hive by the locals. It used to be government housing until about twenty years ago when it was sold off to a developer and the apartments were renovated to accommodate slightly richer people. Despite looking nicer on the inside and out, they’re still rather shitty apartments. There are no penthouses, no suites, no premium flats, just cramped two and three bedroom apartments that are fractionally enjoyable to live in.

   On the top floor of the highest block is an apartment occupied by a small family of only three. It’s 5:30 a.m. in the morning and one of the occupants hasn’t slept. He stayed up at his computer all night web surfing, trolling and hacking websites for kicks. Suddenly his messenger blinks at him.

 

\-- apocalypseArisen began pestering twinArmageddons \--

 

AA: good morning sol i can always count on you to be up early 0u0   
TA: actually ii don’t 2leep why are you awake?   
AA: im doing the morning shift at my summer job today   
AA: its at that restaurant next to the photocopy shop   
AA: opening hours are very very early   
TA: can you really call that diingy hole iin the wall a re2taurant   
AA: i dont know is there another more accurate word?   
TA: hm   
TA: cant thiink of one riight now   
TA: wa2 there any partiicular rea2on you wanted two talk two me?   
AA: ahaha no reason i just wanted to check up on you   
AA: we havent spoken in a few days   
TA: 2eriiou2ly AA?   
AA: i see youre in one of your cold moods 0_0   
TA: ii’m not in a cold mood!   
AA: if you say so   
TA: actually ii was hopiing you would come onliine 2ometiime 2oon ii’ve been thiinkiing about thii2 a lot and there2 2omethiing ii want two a2k you   
AA: really???   
AA: ask away   
TA: well weve been friiend2 for a pretty long tiime riight? But for a while now ii’ve been feeliing liike weve got thiis really strong bond with each other liike maybe we’re meant two be you know more than friiend2   
AA: sollux are you…   
TA: ii want two go on a date with you aradia   
AA: 0o0   
TA: aa?   
TA: are you 2tiill there??   
AA: sorry you took me by surprise   
TA: well do you want two   
AA: its just that   
TA: iit’2 ju2t that…?   
AA: i thought you were gay   
TA: NO!   
AA: but what about that time in year five when you had a crush on that rich kid with the huge glasses i think he was feferis friend   
TA: ii mean ye2 but al2o no   
AA: ?   
TA: ii’m bii   
AA: how come we never talked about this before?   
TA: iit never really came up   
TA: 2o   
TA: are you okay wiith goiing on a date wiith me before 2chool 2tart2?   
AA: sorry sollux but i dont really feel the same way   
AA: ive always felt like we were just best friends and i would like it to stay that way   
AA: please dont feel bad this isnt your fault   
TA: ii’m fiine   
TA: ii see how iit iis   
AA: dont get upset   
TA: ii’m not upset ii’ll get over it 2omeday   
TA: 2ure iit’ll hurt for a whiile but ii thiink ii’ll be able two heal eventually   
AA: i’m so glad   
AA: I would feel terrible if our friendship fell apart because of this   
AA: sollux?   
AA: sollux??   
AA: are you sure youre okay?????   
TA: yeah ii was ju2t workiing on 2omethiing   
AA: alright then   
AA: my mother is calling me downstairs i think its time for me to go   
AA: i’ll be back online after eleven hopefully   
AA: ttyl   


 

\-- apocalypseArisen ceased pestering twinArmageddons \--

 

Sollux sits back in his office chair, staring at his computer screen. That conversation hadn’t gone the way he’d hoped it would. But he’ll be okay. He might have been rejected but Aradia still wants to be friends so at least he hasn’t lost her forever. Yeah, it will be okay. Sollux feels a bit elated as he continues to console himself but he can also feel that elation slipping like a landslide on his heart. Desperate for something to keep him on his high, he scrolls through his Pesterchum friends to see who else is online. There’s only one now that Aradia has logged off and Sollux doesn’t really want to talk to him but there’s nothing else to do.

 

\-- twinArmageddons began pestering carcinoGeneticist \--

 

TA: hii kk what got you up thii2 early iin the morniing?   
CG: OH GREAT! JUST WHO I WANTED TO HEAR FROM SO EARLY IN THE FUCKING MORNING.   
CG: DON’T YOU HAVE SOMETHING LIKE, I DON’T KNOW, SLEEPING TO DO?   
CG: AND WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU EVEN DO WHEN YOU’RE UP ALL NIGHT ANYWAY?   
TA: ii wa2 ju2t looking for a good friiend two talk two but clearly ii have the wrong guy   
CG: HEY, ARE YOU IMPLYING THAT I AM A SHITTY FRIEND?   
CG: BECAUSE I AM DEFINITELY A GREAT FRIEND.   
CG: WHO ELSE IN OUR FUCKING SHITSCHOOL IS WILLING TO STAND IN YOUR PRESENCE FOR A MOMENT   
CG: WITHOUT CRYING YOU A FUCKING RIVER OR BREAKING OUT INTO HIVES   
CG: ON ACCOUNT OF BEING ALLERGIC TO YOUR GOD DAMN FUCKING RETARDEDNESS?   
CG: YOU’RE FUCKING WELCOME.   
TA: why do you have to be 2o unnece22ariily douchebaggy all the tiime?   
TA: what2 your fuckiing problem?   
CG: MY FUCKING PROBLEM RIGHT NOW IS THAT I HAVE BEEN IN THE DIRECT FIRING LINE   
CG: OF KANKRI’S BULLSHIT FOR A WHOLE MONTH!   
CG: MY FUCKING PROBLEM IS THAT THERE ARE ONLY ABOUT FOUR DECENT MOVIES IN THE HOUSE RIGHT NOW   
CG: AND I’VE WATCHED ALL OF THEM   
CG: HALF A DOZEN TIMES ALREADY!!   
CG: MY FUCKING PROBLEM IS THAT MY MENTALLY CHALLENGED FRIEND DECIDED THAT HE WANTED TO ANNOY ME WITH HIS USUAL BULLSHIT   
CG: AT SIX-THIRTY IN THE MORNING!!!   
CG: WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU EVEN TALKING TO ME?   
TA: becau2e people who are capable of maiintaiiniing normal relation2hiip2 wiith other2 u2ually talk to theiir friiend2 over the iinternet   
CG: NOT AT SIX A-FUCKING-M IN THE MORNING!   


 

   Sollux sighs. This is the reason why he doesn’t like to talk to Karkat. But the screen is still blowing up with his grey all-caps rage.

 

CG: I DON’T WANT TO TALK TO ANYONE   
CG: LEAST OF ALL YOU   
CG: SHUT UP AND GO AWAY   
TA: then why are you onliine?   
CG: FUCK YOU   


 

   Something’s wrong. Karkat is normally bitchy and immature but not on this level unless something has got him really upset. However, Sollux feels really depressed now and can’t handle dealing with Karkat’s problems.

 

TA: fiine   
TA: ii see how iit iis then   
CG: AND WHAT IS WITH  
CG: THAT GODDAMN RETARDED TYPING QUIRK?  
CG: SERIOUSLY  
CG: HOW IS THAT EVEN NORMAL????   


 

\-- twinArmageddons ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist \--

 

That figures. The only friend Sollux has right now is determined not to help him out. Actually, Sollux is pretty sure that’s what anyone else would do. Who would want to deal with his problems in his shitty life? _You’re terrible_ , he thinks. He wouldn’t be surprised if even his dad hated him. He’d have a pretty sweet life if he didn’t have to handle Sollux’s mood swings and pay for the ongoing therapy and cocktail of pills his son needed. A cocktail that Sollux isn’t very diligent in taking.

   He’s only been on the medications recently. The doctors wanted to see if non-medicated treatment would be sufficient, since Sollux is still so young. But his case is a severe one and he had to go on pills. They help, but the side effects are so awful that Sollux can’t bear to continue. The mood stabiliser made him lose his appetite and he wasted away. The antipsychotic didn’t work. The antidepressant gave him headaches and made him nauseous.

   It’s getting lighter outside and the clock on his computer shows him that it’s already past seven. Suddenly he hears movement throughout the apartment. He may be on summer break but his father still has to go to work. He looks at his bedroom door, firmly shut as usual. He has one of those huge day planner calendars hanging on it. His dad bought it for him when his shrink told him to keep a mood chart for the purposes of keeping track of his mental disorder, his medication doses and his sleep pattern. He grimaces when he sees all of the blue and red lies he writes on it. According to the chart he took all of his pills yesterday morning. He didn’t. He held them under his tongue and spat them out the window while his father wasn’t looking. He’s recorded roughly six to eight hours sleep each night in the past week. The truth is that he’s hardly slept. He picks up his blue marker, sitting on the desk and half hidden under some magazines and computer games, and goes up to his calendar, recording a healthy seven and a half hours sleep for the previous night. As an afterthought he quickly turns off his desk lamp, hops over to his bed, gets under the covers and squirms around a bit to make it look like he’s been there for a while if his dad decides to come in soon.

   His bedroom is small and he doesn’t keep it all that well. He can cross the room from his desk to his bed in a mere two strides. The length from the door to the window is much bigger but he’s created a somewhat winding path for himself. His room is a giant mess of wires criss-crossing the floor, dirty clothes, computer games and all of the computer hardware and software lying about. He built all of it himself. He has two working desktop computers, one that he uses frequently (like last night) and another that he uses sparingly because he built it with custom specs that he engineered himself and it needs a fucking air-conditioner blowing directly on it just so that it won’t explode from overheating. He also has his own mainframe next to his wardrobe that he uses mainly for hacking purposes but god damn does that thing run hot! It’s the reason why most of his major hacking exploits are conducted in winter. He also uses this piece of equipment sparingly for fear that it will blow up, not from overheating but due to the fact that it’s made out of junk.

   Some time goes by and Sollux still doesn’t feel the least bit tired so he gets up and leaves his bedroom. He goes down the short, cramped hallway and into the kitchen, pretending to stagger a bit to feign sleepiness. His dad is there, putting some breakfast dishes away in the dishwasher. He looks a bit harried, like he might be late for work. Sollux glances at the kitchen clock. His dad can still be at work on time if he leaves now and it looks like he’s about to. He’s got his work bag lying in the other doorway to the kitchen and his keys are on the bench next to a couple of bowls and spoons, a cereal box and a small measuring cup with Sollux’s prescription dosage of medications already sorted into it. _Why does he bother being this kind_ , Sollux wonders, _when he has a lying sack-of-shit son who won’t even take them and then lies to his face about it?_

   His dad straightens up from the dishwasher and notices Sollux leaning in the doorway. He smiles. “Morning, Sol’.”

   “Hi dad.”

   “Did you sleep well last night?”

   Sollux nods and smiles, hoping he doesn’t look tired and that his smile doesn’t look forced. His dad comes over to ruffle his hair.

   “Okay. Make sure you eat breakfast and there are some leftovers in the fridge that you can have for lunch.” He goes back to the other side of the room to pick up his bag. “Look after Mituna and yourself, alright? I’ll be back around half past five. See you.” He waves and turns to walk out of the kitchen to the front door.

   Sollux hears the door shutting and the jangle of keys turning in the lock. When he’s sure his father is gone he gets his pills and carries them back down the hall, past Mituna’s bedroom marked with some garish, childish crap and his own bedroom marked with his name written in binary and a medication schedule. There is a cupboard at the end of the hall and a pokey little corner that hides the entrance to the bathroom. Sollux always runs into it when he goes in the middle of the night.

   He locks the bathroom door behind him and flushes the pills down the toilet. Then he turns on the shower but doesn’t take off his clothes before getting in. He stands under the cold stream, staring miserably at the soap tray. The half whittled away bar of soap begins to fizz and bubble and little pin pricks that look like knife tips are rapidly darting up and down through the top. He looks away from the distressing sight and down at the drain. The water is running down into the darkness of the pipe below but the darkness is also bubbling up like a deadly biohazard. Little stems squirt out of the bubbles, some of them even forming fingers and grasping uselessly at the shower tiles.

   The door handle of the bathroom jiggles violently. Suddenly there’s a loud pounding on the door, which Sollux ignores and continues to stare at the morbid hallucinations in the shower, wondering if they’re demons coming for his blood. Loud cursing starts up on the other side of the door, then more pounding.

   “Thollukth!”

   The mangled pronunciation of his name finally makes him look up and glare angrily at the door.

   “I wanna pee!”

   “Jutht wait, idiot!” Sollux shouts back.

   “Okay… thorry.” Mituna’s mumbling can hardly be heard over the running of the shower.

   Sollux wants to just go back to staring at the drain but wonders instead if maybe he should just tilt his head up and hold his mouth open so that his throat can fill up with water and drown him. As his eyes pan slowly back from the door to the shower, they stop on the bathroom sink. The sink and bench are wedged into the corner and the mirror is too, making it possible for Sollux to see himself in half of it. He looks depressing in his black pyjamas and his mismatched eyes make him look like a freak, he thinks. One of them is blue and the other is pink (it looks red in the sunlight) because for some reason his genes decided to be douchebags and leave the pigment out of one eye. It’s a family trait; his dad and older brother suffer from the same mutant gene. Actually, they’re really not suffering but Sollux feels like they should be for being born as freaks.

   The bench around the sink isn’t very tidy, cluttered with all of their bathroom toiletries that really should be put away in the cabinet underneath but never are. His eyes fall on his father’s shaving razor. He pushes open the glass shower door and reaches for it. It’s perfect; just what he needs. He starts trying to take it apart while the cold water pelts down on him, running rivulets along his skin. He gets the blades free and holds one in the fingers of his right hand. Using this would be easier than waiting to drown in the shower. It would also satisfy the demons’ lust for blood. He can’t see them creeping out of the drain and the soap anymore but he knows they must be nearby, cheering him on.

   He makes a cut across his left wrist. It wells up red and quickly starts to drip, helped by the running water. It hurt but that’s good. Pain and blood are sure signs of imminent death. He slices himself again. It would be better if he dies. He was already rejected by Aradia and Karkat. Slice. His dad could move out of this shitty apartment and into a real house without the burden of Sollux’s medications and therapy bullshit to manage his stupid mental disease. Slice. He could take better care of Mituna that way too. Slice. Nobody will have to look at his stupid freak eyes again. Slice. He stares at his wrist. He’s got five wounds bleeding profusely. Blood swirls down the drain and Sollux hears the gurgling and slurping of monsters lapping it up gluttonously. Mituna resumes banging on the door, begging to come in, begging for forgiveness and screaming profanity. Sollux pays him no attention. Five is probably enough for one wrist. Time to start on the other one.

 

* * *

 

 

Sollux’s dad curses and smacks himself in the forehead. He’s standing by the driver’s side of his car and he’s just found out that he left his car key upstairs in the apartment. He checks his wristwatch. Hopefully the boss won’t mind if he’s only ten or fifteen minutes late. With a heavy sigh he goes back to the elevator and punches in the button for the top floor. It’s a long ride to the top and the elevator is quite basic. It would be just as fast to walk if it wasn’t so exhausting. Thankfully, the elevator isn’t stopped by other residents. He gets off at his floor and hurries back to his apartment. He has his house key ready by the time he gets there to unlock the door.

   When he pushes the door open he is immediately aware that something is amiss. The shower is running but that isn’t a problem, either Sollux or Mituna are taking a shower. There’s a bad smell in the apartment. He takes a deep breath and grimaces. It smells sharp and reminds him of citrus without smelling nearly as nice… acid? Is that urine?

   Mr Captor sighs heavily and crosses the kitchen to the hallway. If there is something extremely wrong perhaps his boss would understand. He turns into the hallway and sees Mituna at the end of it, wearing wet pyjama pants and standing in a big yellow puddle. He gaped. Mituna hadn’t wet himself for years except in his sleep and even that was getting rarer. Mituna looks up and gives his dad a sad, kicked-puppyish expression.

   “Are you kidding me?” his father asks, incredulously. Mituna looks even sadder.

   “I’m thorry,” Mituna sobs.

   His dad hurries over and shushes him, stroking his fluffy hair in a comforting way. “Look, it’s okay. We’ll just have to clean this up, yeah? First we’ll need to get you cleaned up, though.”

   “I… I…” Mituna says softly. He looks like he’s on the verge of tears. Then all of a sudden he starts screaming: “I’m thorry! Ith Thollokth’eth fault! Help! I can’t pee! Thorry! Thollukth won’t let me in!” 

   His father puts his hands firmly on the sides of Mituna’s head and forces his boy to look at him. “Mituna, it will be fine. Calm down and I’ll get you cleaned up.” Mituna mumbles something unintelligible but he’s less distraught and confused. His dad sighs and knocks on the bathroom door. “Sollux? How long are you going to be in there?”

   No reply. Mr Captor frowns and knocks harder. “Sollux, Mituna wet himself, he needs a shower. Sollux?”

   There’s still no reply, not even a hum to indicate that he even heard. Their dad exhales sharply and takes the house key out of his pocket. There’s a little groove on the outside knob of the bathroom door that allows it to be unlocked from the outside with anything thin enough to slip into it. He turns the key in the groove and the door clicks open.

   “Sollux, didn’t you—”

   The rest of the sentence gets stuck in his throat. Sollux is slumped against the wall of the shower and there are two streams of blood swirling down the drain from his wrists. Mituna is left staring into the bathroom, unsure of exactly what he’s seeing, as their dad rushes to the phone to call an ambulance.


End file.
